By Giovanni Roverso
DIY book authors shared their stories and experiences for Studium Generale at the Peninsula College Little Theater on Feb. 4. PC Multimedia Communications Instructor Marina Shipova and English Instructors Kate Reavey and Janet Lucas presided over the event, which was co-sponsored by the Foothills Writers Series. Reavey is Studium Generale coordinator and Lucas is co-director of the Foothills Writers Series with Helen Lovejoy.
Authors Martha Ireland, Sarah Lindquist, Melissa Penic, Eycke Strickland and Jim Yerkes were on stage. All but Yerkes, who published a book of poems, partook in Shipova’s five credit Media 155 E-Book Design and Publishing course, which has been on offer every year in spring quarter at the Port Angeles campus since 2014.
“Hot damn that felt good!” Yerkes said about getting his collection of poems, Eklectika, online in 2015. The design and publishing work was done by someone else, but said he might still check Shipova’s class out for his next project.
“Never made a penny on it, who buys poetry nowadays?” he said in reference to his book. He said that the satisfaction of it being available online made it worth it though. Yerkes recited his poem, “Spring.”
Reavey touched upon Makah student John Pritchard III’s slam poetry collection as well, which was featured at the event and was brought to print with Shipova’s help, among others. The success of his book was essential for him to get funding for a quarter abroad to Italy in 2015.
Penic, who teaches glasswork, said she’d been having a hard time finding her own niche as she had no money behind her when she happened upon Shipova’s e-book design class, which she said taught her to self-publish on Amazon at virtually no cost.
“I was like, my students on the Peninsula will buy a few copies and provide returns,” she said, “I let Amazon do the work for me, plus I get sales all over the world and don’t even have to market it on a blog or Facebook!”
“I had to publish something for the class, so I said, ‘might as well do something I care about,’” said Penic, whose 2014 book is called “Remarkable Recycling for Fused Glass.” The course leverages computer software like Adobe InDesign as well as a variety of Amazon services.
“Marina is the most patient instructor possible and personalizes the course for you,” Penic said, “I was one of those people who had to be dragged through everything.”
“If you are ready to put your ego into your back pocket and are willing to learn from someone who knows a lot more than you do about a subject, you will reap the rewards for moving out of your comfort zone,” said Strickland, who had taken the first iteration of Shipova’s class in 2014 along with Ireland, Lindquist, Penic and others.
“When running into a problem Marina would say, ‘don’t worry, we can fix it,’” Strickland said.
In 2008, Strickland published her successful World War II-era memoirs, “Eyes are Watching, Ears are Listening, Growing up in Nazi-Germany, 1933-1946,” but that was only after a discouraging rejection.
“When I first submitted my manuscript, agents and main-line publishers informed me that in order for my book to sell, I would have to play up my father’s rescue of Jewish lives during the Holocaust and pretty much eliminate my childhood experiences,” Strickland said.
Unwilling to sacrifice the spirit of her work, she reached out to iUniverse Author Solutions to assist with self-publishing. She said their editors suggested a similar re-work like the mainline publishers wanted, but she persisted and got her vision accepted. While not free, thanks to incentives, promotions and discounts, she was able to turn a profit within just a few weeks.
In 2014 she published the German translation in paperback, as well as the e-book version in each language, at no cost thanks to Shipova’s course. The e-books were met with great success, Strickland said, with the German Kindle edition at the top of the bestseller list for three months.
In 2015 she even received an Excellence in e-Lit Award and a second award from the International Independent Book Publishers.
“I was recently told the Foothills Writers series was originally established to give writers in the foothills of their careers an opportunity to share their work,” Strickland mused, before reading an excerpt from her book.
Lindquist, a former Buccaneer reporter, started publishing her book in paperback and e-book, “BioMech,” in four volumes following Shipova’s class. Lindquist’s science fiction novel is inspired by the mecha anime genre and called it a mix of Iron Man and Cowboy Bebop.
Lindquist, who suffers from PTSD, said her greatest hope is that through her success she can “help fight the stereotypes and stigma wrongfully given to all those with any mental and/or emotional disabilities, disorders, illnesses, handicaps, challenged, whatever word the media is using these days,” in the about section for her book.
Ireland read from her self-published four-part e-book Western action-murder-mystery, “The Trail of the Snake,” now being assembled in its entirety for paperback, is also inspired by her origins. She said the fictional events are set where the Mckeeth—her maiden name—family is from, in 1880s southern Idaho territory, before its statehood. After building the characters and events since her childhood, and after three rewrites over the years, Shipova’s class finally got her work out on the market.
“Even with few copies sold, you can just get your work out there,” said Reavey. Amazon offers a variety of solutions for self-publishing authors, depending on the format and level of control sought.
CreateSpace is an Amazon’s print on-demand service.
“A print book selling for $10 should cost about $4 to print, with a 10% fee. The rest is profit,” Shipova said.
Kindle Direct Publishing Tools are used for e-book publishing.
Kindle Scout is a simple service used to get published with minimal effort, for which the main requirement is that the work be copy-edited professionally at least once, after which Amazon manages all the marketing and provides a 50% return on sales, Lindquist said.
However, while Scout is convenient, it actually means less control and 20% less profit if properly priced.
“If you do it yourself you can use custom fonts, add illustrations, hyperlinks, video, interactivity and basic animation,” she said.
Shipova said the extra freedom can be crucial for certain types of publication such as her student Makayla DeScala and her son Javen DeScala’s 2015 children’s graphic novel, “Three Little Boas,” which Javen illustrated completely.
“It was really inspiring for kids. Now his sister and all the kids around him want to get published, and hopefully he will come back to publishing in the future,” she said, “that was really a great success. He became the most popular kid in school, had book signings for his peers, and it was inspiring for other children. I’d like to think that it changed his life.”
Marina is amazing